itourist?

spent yesterday doing tourist things in london. it’s not unusual for me to feel like a stranger in london – depending on which bit i happen to be in. i don’t feel strange on mare street or brick lane for example. but i feel positively alien at canary wharf shopping plaza. my friend, who has lived in london for eight years but isn’t english remarked that she felt exactly like a tourist. how could she not? we’d taken a boat trip from greenwich to the tower of london. for some reason we found the spectacle of four new york hassids posing in front of the tower very amusing. why is that? they weren’t smiling.